[8/29/2013 18:12] Kieve: I was still attempting to nail down the overall aesthetic for the Incursor stuff, .... I have no intent to use any of these.[2/18/2015 16:47] NarnKar: Do you mind if I use some of those bits, if you have no intent of using them?[2/18/2015 18:16] Kieve: If you think you can get use of them, go for it. Though as a courtesy, I'd ask they not be made in the white/gray/orange Incursor color scheme.yes that's your flavor text this time, what are you gonna do about it

Aegir KronosA stealth-assault ship that prioritizes offense over defense, taking the ion and drone-swarm build to an extreme. Although its heavy laser drones and its twin ion beams are mighty weapons in battle, permanent lack of shields makes it tough to fly.

One day I saw an interesting shape--I can't remember exactly where, I think it was from another space game--but I remember thinking "that would make a cool spaceship part". So I started messing with it, spriting in and around it; I borrowed some of Kieve's discarded sketches to piece the whole ship together.

Although I can't really call it "my" ship hull, in the sense that it was inspired by and takes pieces from other people, I'm still pretty damn proud of how it came out, especially since I'm not an artist by trade and I'm pretty inexperienced with drawing and Photoshop (well, GIMP) and things like that. It's kinda like "baby's first ship artwork", in a sense.

I was thinking about how it should play, because I didn't really have a concept for this ship in mind. I decided to give it a lot of ion weaponry, seeing how blue and glowy it is, and decided to try an ion-drone build. Then I remembered some of the other ship mods people have posted here, with Stealth Cruisers that have pre-igniter but no defenses at all, relying on an ability to quickly rush down other ships. So I thought--why not take this idea to the extreme? Give it massive offense, but take away its ability to have defense at all?

So I gave it double Ion Beams as artillery.

Ion Beam system

Ion Beams firing

The Ion Beams are basically two Pike beams that do Ion damage instead of normal damage. They don't have any shield piercing, but--trust me--they'll absolutely melt any shields they touch.

You'll notice that it starts at a 20 second cooldown...and can't be upgraded past that. This is because twin artilleries aren't quite supported by FTL, and don't receive the benefits of being upgraded. To prevent people from wasting their money, I modified the power levels so you just can't upgrade it at all. This will also drastically affect the artilleries of the Federation ships (and make the Fed C unplayable)--hence, I've made this thing replace the Federation A, so that there's as little impact as possible.

Massive offensive potential, with powerful ion weaponry and powerful heavy laser drones, in addition to four drone slots.......at the cost of locking out the last system slot. This ship is permanently shieldless. The "permanent shieldlessness" comes from the fact that the ship already has eight systems (Engines, Cloaking, Drones, Med/Clonebay, Weapons, Oxygen, Artillery 1, Artillery 2) and thus can't install any more systems--including shields.

To compensate for this lack of shields, engine upgrades are cheaper, and cloaking can be taken up to level 5 (25 second cloak). Plus, the eight power that you would've put in shields can go into other systems, perhaps.

I don't know how balanced this thing will be. It's quite unlike any of the ships existing in-game, so I have no reference point to compare the Kronos to. It could be overpowered; it could be underpowered; I'm not really sure! But it was sitting in my workbench, forever unpublished, because I was never really satisfied with the balance, no matter how much I tweaked it. But I realized: it just needs more testing, at this point. No matter how much I tweak it, if I don't release it for people to play (and test), I'll never have any data to base my balancing on. I decided, then, to release it, but stick a beta by its version number, so people would know I'm not quite done with it yet.

The gibs. Considering this ship's odd balance, you could end up like this.

So, here it is: Aegir Kronos.

Download Beta version 1.0 here.Replaces the Federation A. To get the full experience (mostly tooltip corrections), install with later versions of Slipstream Mod Manager, as this mod uses .rawappend features which don't work in earlier versions.

Just so you know, from my experiences with multiple artillery systems, if you hit "restart" and not "hangar" you'll lose one of the guns. And the second gun doesn't show up as a system slot, so it does sort of limit how many systems you can get, even if there are no shields.

Speaking of shields, has the ship got an ellipse (so Drones can orbit and wreck it like Ralph) and the possibility of the system (you can always make it cost 1000 Scrap so no one will buy it and ruin your intent)? Because if you don't allow the possibility of a shield, it'll affect Zoltan Shields. Or is it intentional that you can't make up for a lack of defence with a Zoltan Shield and be subject to the slings and arrows of Hacking and Mind Control?

Oh and it looks awesome. Maybe I should try it out and get back into recording videos. It's been months since I last did that...

I gave the ship a shield system (that it doesn't start with) and a shield ellipse, yes. The ellipse properly covers the entire ship. The "permanent shieldlessness" comes from the fact that the ship already has eight systems, and thus can't install any more systems--including shields.

NarnKar wrote:I gave the ship a shield system (that it doesn't start with) and a shield ellipse, yes. The ellipse properly covers the entire ship. The "permanent shieldlessness" comes from the fact that the ship already has eight systems, and thus can't install any more systems--including shields.

Ah. Right.Excellent. Although I've got this feeling that if I play this thing (and record it), my first jump will lead me to a Rebel Rigger with a beam and a Beam Drone right off the bat

Oh, forgot to mention: To compensate for this lack of shields, I gave the ship some special system boosts all around. Engine upgrades are cheaper, engines can be taken up to level 10, and cloaking can be taken up to level 5 (25 second cloak). Plus, the eight power that you would've put in shields can go into other systems, perhaps.

NarnKar wrote:Oh, forgot to mention: To compensate for this lack of shields, I gave the ship some special system boosts all around. Engine upgrades are cheaper, engines can be taken up to level 10, and cloaking can be taken up to level 5 (25 second cloak). Plus, the eight power that you would've put in shields can go into other systems, perhaps.

Level 10 Engines? Are you trying to get people killed? After Level 8, any more power to the Engines results in total shutdown with the only evasion provided by the crew. So you might want to warn people about that and say the extra levels are sort of a damage buffer (like Captain's Edition says about level 4-5 Piloting. Although they do nothing extra or detrimental) and are not to be powered up that high, or else risk taking more hits than you should be.

EDIT: turns out I am remembering incorrectly, all I did was make engines cheaper. It still only goes to level 8. Crisis averted.

I did some real crazy overpowered ship construction back in the days of pre-AE and "a month after AE came out and I had to rediscover what could and couldn't be done in making overpowered ships" and yeah, things like 7 shield layers were possible but Level 9+ Engines ended horribly.

Oh and reactor power. Everyone tries to find the golden number of bars for an OP ship, only for me to roll my eyes and say "Don't buy a frakking battery and don't go into a frakking ion storm if you're worried about crashes."